michelle obama is really the headliner speaker tonight. julian castro will be the keynote speaker tonight. let me ask you governor the key question that everyone seems to be talking about the last few days. are we better off than we were four years ago? >> i can only speak for north carolina and what's happened here. a little more than four years ago we were in charlotte watching wachovia collapse, a major financial institution in america. we saw tens of thousands of jobs lost because of the worst recession since the great depression. right now granted there are a lot of people in my state unemployed and i understand how hard it is for those families, but at the end of the day, after 29 months of consecutive job growth, we appear to be coming out and that puts us in a better place philosophically so we're on our way out and i think all of us in america have to remain optimistic and focused on job creation. connell: if things are getting better and if they are getting better in your state which the president won last time around and it's go